


Tumblr Mixtape

by theremin



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Ficlet Collection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-22
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:27:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22364092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theremin/pseuds/theremin
Summary: Shorts and drabbles originally posted to mytumblr account.
Relationships: Jared Dunn/Richard Hendricks
Comments: 9
Kudos: 55





	1. Call Me When You Get There

**Author's Note:**

> Richard is away on a conference and calls up his boyfriend.

_“Hi Richard!”_

“Hey, Jared.”

_“Oh gosh! How are you? How’s the conference?”_

“It’s uh, it’s fine, yeah, fine.”

_“Where are you now?”_

“Wellll I’m uh, back at the hotel. In bed.”

_“Oh, I’m glad to hear it Richard, you need your beauty sleep.”_

“Yeah uh I wasn’t planning on going to sleep quite yet. I wanted to talk to you.”

A soft laugh. _“It’s really too bad I couldn’t come along. New England is beautiful this time of year.”_

“Yeah, I wish you were here. Right now.”

_“Me too, Richard.”_

“Right here uh in bed with me uh.”

_“Is the hotel nice?”_

“Yeah uh it’s fine whatever. So uh, I’m uh, wearing my blue t-shirt right now and-”

_“I packed your pajamas, maybe you should put them on? You know how susceptible you are to colds.”_

A pause. “I miss you.”

_“I miss you too, Richard.”_

“I uh, I miss your body. And your mouth.” Another pause. “And uh- Jared, I’m kind of trying to do like a sexy-”

_“Oh. Oh!”_

“What uh what do you say? Wanna uh… fool around? Um?”

_“Er.”_

“Where are you right now? What are you wearing?”

_“Uh. Richard, could you hold for a minute? I’m going to transfer you to my supervisor.”_

“Uh, what? What the fuck? No, don’t- what are you even talking ab-”

_“Yo, this is Ed Chambers.”_

“Uh? Jared? What are you-”

A braying, loud laugh. _“Richard Hendricks? Is that you? Well well well.”_

“Uh, like what are you- is this like the thing where you were trying to negotiate-”

_“Put me on speaker, baby. You’re going to need both hands.”_


	2. Creep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> High school AU. Dateless teenage outcasts Richard and Jared get high in Richard's car on prom night.

“I’m a creeeep! I’m a weeeiirdoooooo! What the hell am I doing heeere!” Richard and Jared yelled along to the stereo, then Jared got a coughing fit, Richard started giggling and rolled down the car window, letting wafts of smoke out. Richard started vocalising alongside Thom Yorke’s falsetto nonsense, and Jared drank out of his water bottle, coughed and spluttered all over himself.

“Run, run, run, ruuuuuun,“ Richard sang, slapping Jared’s back. Jared stopped coughing, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Oh, man,” Jared said, sank back in the seat. “I feel so… uh.”

“High?” Richard giggled. The Radiohead song ended and a Decemberists song came on.

“Happy,” Jared said. “um. Happy, Richard.”

Richard sighed. “It’s kinda pathetic though. Like. Everybody else is like, partying. Except us. Hey, if you could have taken anyone to prom tonight, who would you have taken?”

“You,” Jared said.

“No I mean like, haha, I mean like, anyone in school. Like uh, Katie Evans. Or Jessica Schiller. Hey, even miss Kaczynski, hahahaha. Like, anyone.”

"You, Richard,” Jared said again. “if I was… brave… like an amazon… I would have asked you.”

Richard laughed. “Weirdo.”

Jared rested his chin on his hand, which Richard noticed was long and elegant. “I think you’re the kindest person I met since I came to Tulsa. And I think you’re really good looking. You look like Montgomery Clift.” He smiled a little.

Richard took another drag. “Uh… cool.” He looked at Jared’s hands again. “I think you have Marfan syndrome.”


	3. Cambodian Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus scene from [Eat, Go Birding, Love](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822682/chapters/52078099), set during [chapter 9](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21822682/chapters/52600786)

Jared’s hand was warm and large in his, fingers threaded together. It was 3AM and they were walking together to the hotel. It was dark, but warm. They’d gone to a club and it had been kind of - Richard hated clubs, he didn’t like the music or the crowds or the - but it was kind of different when you went with, well, with someone who only had eyes for you. It transformed the experience in a way. They’d danced and made out and it had been sweaty and euphoric and the music had been about 50/50 western pop hits and shit he’d never heard before and while Richard had no intention of making this a regular thing, it had been a fun experience, it had been - something he’d been happy to have crossed off his list as well? Gone to a club without wanting to die? He held Jared’s hand a little tighter. The list of things he could cross off the list with Jared seemed at that moment unending.

They reached the hotel, walked through the reception and nodded at the sleepy looking receptionist, went into the elevator. The elevator was a bit of a feature, and you could see the city below you through a glass wall all the way up to the eleventh floor.

“It’s so pretty,” Jared said. “gosh, I like it here.”

“Me too,” Richard said. “I’ve been thinking, like, imagine just like, staying.” He let go of Jared’s hand and linked his arms around his waist instead, sideways, looking out over Phnom Penh. Jared let his hand come up in Richard’s hair.

“I know what you mean.”

“Yeah, like, as long as I have a laptop and internet I can work, you know?”

“Mmhmm. Well, let’s take it one day at the time.”

The elevator doors opened with a ding and they made their way to the room. Jared grinned, took Richard’s face in his hands, used his thumbs to stroke his jaw. “Are you tired?”

“No,” Richard said. “I’m like… humming.”

“Adrenaline,” Jared said, and kissed him, an open-mouthed and wet kiss. Richard slid his tongue inside, bunched his fists in Jared’s shirt. It made him bold, being with Jared. Like… high ceiling. On the rare occasions Richard did something Jared didn’t particularly enjoy he just gently corrected him with firm friendly fingers, like a yoga instructor, or made an alternative suggestion to what he was doing. Solutions-oriented. That had been on his CV.

“Off, off,” Richard said, clumsily unbuttoning Jared’s sweaty shirt and peeling it off him.

They undressed and Richard guided Jared over to the bed, pushed him over on his side. “Uh, turn over? Baby?”

Jared lay down on his stomach, long and limber and lovely, and looked over his shoulder. “Do you want to fuck me?”

“Uh I just I… I want to… can I just…” Richard climbed over him, pressed his cheek into Jared’s from behind, and kissed the corner of his mouth. “like I just want to look at you.”

Jared giggled. “Well, okay, Richard.”

Richard pressed a kiss to the hairline on the back of Jared’s long neck, brushed his lips along his shoulders, ran his tongue over his sharp shoulderblades. He ran a hand firmly down Jared’s spine and he arched like a cat under him. “You taste all salty.”

“I could probably use a shower.”

“No. You’re delicious.” Richard released a long, shuddery breath. “I uuuh I love your body. Heh.”

He stroked his hands over Jared’s small ass, kneewalked down to stroke his thighs and down his legs, the tender backs of his knees. He bit his lip hard. Jared shifted and turned over on his back underneath him, smiled, sat up and grabbed at Richard, pulled him down for another kiss, lost his hand in Richard’s hair.

“Would you like me to fuck you?” Jared asked.

“uh”

“Because I’d like that, if you’d like that,” Jared said, smiling.

Lists and crosses. Richard nodded. Yeah. He’d like that.


	4. Next Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sketch sequel to [Four Nights In Paris](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21650398/chapters/51627253).

**THE CHRISTMAS AFTER THAT**

Jared stepped out of the car, and then stopped. Richard, halfway up the driveway, his bag slung over his shoulder, turned around, looked at him, and came back.

“Um, Jared? Something wrong?”

“I’m so nervous,” Jared said. “what if your family hates me.”

Richard frowned. “Are you serious? You talk to them more than I do.”

“That’s just Facebook pleasantries.”

“Like a week ago I tried to be sexy and said we should go to bed early and you didn’t want to because you were live-watching The Great British Baking Show with my mom.”

“Oh, Richard, maybe I should meet them some other time. I can go, uh, back to the airport-”

Richard rolled his eyes and grabbed his hand. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

He dragged him up towards the front door. “Richard, Richard, wait.”

“God, what?”

“Does my hair look okay?”

Richard made a face. “Um, actually, uh… could you lean down?”

Jared’s eyes turned round and scared and he bowed his head. Richard reached out and mussed his hair up.

“RICHARD!” Jared desperately stroked his hair down.

“What do you think this is, Brideshead manor?” Richard laughed. Then he squeezed his hand. “Come on. I love you and uh so will they.”

Jared nodded.

*

**AND THE CHRISTMAS AFTER THAT**

“Jared come on, wake up.” Richard rubbed his arm, hard.

“Um. What.”

“It’s Christmas morning. Come on, come on, let’s go downstairs.”

“Oh. Uh.”

Richard got out of bed and promptly fell over the fold-out bed Jared was supposed to be sleeping on (the both of them in Richard’s old bed was a pretty tight squeeze but the night before Richard had patted the bedpost and asked him if he wanted to know how many notches it had and Jared had frowned, shaking his head, and Richard had told him “let’s get it up to one, baby” and it had been so cute he hadn’t been able to refuse).

“Goodness, Richard!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m uhh, I’m bleeding,” Richard said, cupping his nose.

In the photos Richard and Jared wore pajamas and held mugs with hot cocoa, Jared’s smile couldn’t hide his concern and Richard had bloody toilet paper up his nose.

*

**AND THE CHRISTMAS AFTER THAT ONE**

“Will you kiss me?” Jared asked. “I’d like to react better than I did last time.”

They were on top of the Eiffel tower, on the final slot before closing Christmas Eve. Richard had bought them a trip to Paris as an early Christmas gift and while Jared would really have been just as happy spending Christmas with Judy, Dan, Emily and whatever boyfriend du jour she had he had of course been pretty excited about it. Gosh, a lot had changed in the last three years. They’d both quit their jobs at Hooli and Pied Piper was doing pretty brisk business, they’d bought a Victorian-style house together, they’d gotten a dog (currently in the care of their friend Grace, who Jared had asked both because she had a dog Lena the terrier got along with, and because she sent snaps a dozen times a day so he could keep an eye on her).

Richard turned his face up and Jared leaned down and they kissed briefly, soft and sweet and familiar.

Jared smiled. “I love you, Richard Hendricks.”

Richard looked down. “Well uh good uh because uh.” He cleared his throat, then got down on one knee, pulled out a ring box from his jacket pocket and looked up at him, looking mildly terrified. “Um uhhhh Jared uhh will, will you uhh”

Jared slapped a hand to his mouth and then covered his face with both hands, shoulders heaving.

“Um? Jared?”

Jared shook his head, made muffled sounds. They were starting to draw the attention of the other tourists up there. Richard got up, blushing, smiled apologetically to a concerned looking older woman.

“Is uh, is that uh, a no? I mean uh sorry about uh god I shouldn’t have done this in public, I just thought it would be like romantic. I’m a fucking idiot, it’s okay, we don’t have to, don’t cry uh”

Jared pulled his hands off his wet, red face and choked out “yes”. Richard grinned all over his face.

“Yes?”

Jared nodded. Richard pulled him down into a tight hug and Jared breathed hard into his neck, and when he’d stopped shaking he pulled away enough to kiss him, a proper hands-in-hair, sliding-tongues, two-hearts-beating-hard kind of kiss.

The other tourists ignored the spectacle. They had pictures to take before the Tower closed, and didn’t need two gauche Americans in them.


	5. Paying the Piper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Very sexy roleplay

Jared was engrossed in his book. It was a really good one. Richard was pottering around the condo doing something or other, Jared figured he’d come to bed when he was ready. He heard Richard clear his throat, but just turned the page.

“Uhh. Jared. Jared!”

“Mm?” Jared said, not looking up.

“Um, Jared, hello, Christ.”

“What is i-” Jared looked up and then stared. Richard was wearing his piper outfit. All of it. Complete with tights, dashing cape, feathered cap, flute stuck in his waistband. He was smiling, standing right in the doorway to their bedroom. Jared’s mouth fell open.

“Well, milord, yon hamlet is free of rats. It is time… to pay the piper.”

Jared’s hand clutched at the collar of his T-shirt, then he dog-eared the book with shaking hands and put it on the nightstand. “Oh! We are but a poor village, and this plague of rats has destroyed our stores. Maybe you could come back next year, when the coffers will be replenished? Would you accept an IOU?”

Richard walked over, confidently, cape swaying behind him. Oh, what a picture. He always seemed to stand a few feet taller in that outfit. “No, milord, we agreed upon a bounty of twenty guilders, and I shall accept nothing less.”

“Oh, sir, we just don’t have that kind of money. I should know, I am the village treasurer, herr Huybert van Oelffen.”

“Uh. Specific,” Richard mumbled, then sat down on the bed. “Well um.. Huybert… uh… yeah I’m not going to call you that. Well, treasurer, perhaps you have something of equal worth.”

Jared gasped and clasped his hand to his mouth. “Not the children!”

“Um? What the fuck. No, not the - okay yeah I know that’s part of the - can we not talk about children. Um, no, sir.” Richard cleared his throat. “You, treasurer, are a comely lad.” He traced Jared’s jaw with the pad of his thumb. “A travelling musician can get lonely.”

Understanding dawned on Jared’s face and he gasped again. “You- you suggest-”

Richard trailed his hand down Jared’s skinny chest. “Come now. Perhaps I can make you too sing?” He looked pleased with himself after that line.

“Oh! But I am a married man! What will my Jutte say!”

Richard’s shoulders slumped. “Jared, like uh, I think we have enough like, character detail and context now.”

“Too much?”

“Yeah, uh, just a little. Like, I can’t like concentrate if I have to remember all this shit, and it ruins it.”

“I know, I know.”

“Remember the time we had to stop in the middle of things because I had to go look on Wikipedia?”

“Yes, yes, you were right, there weren’t tomatoes in ancient Rome.”

“Exactly.”

“Well, on the plus side, I learned something?”

“Okay, uh, so uh, no more like, detail.” Jared shook his head and smiled. Richard grabbed the duvet covering Jared’s bottom half and pushed it aside. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a lad more fair in all of my travels.”

Jared blushed. “I have never been touched so by a man.” Richard frowned. “Oh, sorry, not more character stuff,” Jared apologised.

“No no uh, I like that, I’m uh I’m into it. Umm. Well,” he said, smiling, looking at Jared through his eyelashes. “then I have a great many things to teach you.” Richard leaned in closer, still sitting on the side of the bed, twisting his torso to crowd Jared, trapped against the headboard. “You tremble.” Jared whimpered. “Don’t be afear’d. We will simply start with a kiss.”

Richard leaned in and kissed him softly, and Jared responded after a few seconds, big hand finding purchase in Richard’s cape. It turned wet and slippery and when Richard pulled away, Jared followed, eyes closed. Richard laughed, pushing him away with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Jared shook his head and stared at him with round blue eyes.

“No, I didn’t think so, either. Easily worth ten rats.”

“How many kisses to settle the balance?” Jared asked a little breathlessly. “Let me give you another.”

“Eager thing,” Richard said, and climbed on top of the bed, straddling Jared’s legs, leaned in for another kiss. Jared’s hands grabbed at the cape, then found their way underneath to grab at Richard’s back. “You get ahead of yourself, treasurer,” Richard said, pulling his hands away and moving away to sit on his haunches. “ungarb. Let me look at your body.”

Jared blushed again, but pulled off his sleepclothes and let them fall to the floor. He’d always felt kind of weird about his body, long and gaunt and landscaped with dips and hollows, but well - Richard liked it, and Richard liked to look at it, and Jared found he liked to let him. Gosh, he felt like - like some kind of Hollywood sex symbol when Richard looked at him, like, like Sissy Spacek, or Anthony Perkins.

“Comely indeed,” Richard said, skating a hand from Jared’s throat to his chest to his rounded belly.

Jared turned from his back to his side to look at Richard’s plainly visible erection through his tights. That was part of why he’d always been so stupidly turned on by this outfit, it was kind of - both loose and tight at the same time and he’d had a hard time trying to keep his eyes off Richard’s bulge when he’d wear it around the office, which was thankfully quite rare. Pied Piper would have gone under a lot sooner with a distraction like that walking around the open plan.

“You look,” Richard said. “like you would like a flute lesson.”


	6. A Friendly Face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richard picks Jared up after having spent four days alone on Gavin's robot island.

“Hello, Monica,” Richard said, answering his phone.

_“Hey-”_

“I was actually about to call you - have you heard from Jared? He hasn’t come in in like uh… I think, four days? Maybe? I tried calling him and leaving some messages but he hasn’t got back to me? Which is uh… not like him.”

_“I’m calling about Jared.”_

“Okay?” Richard bit his lip. Surely nothing could be like, legit wrong?

_“Umm,”_ Monica started, sounding a lot more unsure than usual. _“soo… a few days ago, I offered him to take one of Gavin’s self driving cars home.”_

“What? What the fuck, was he in an accident?”

_“Kind of,”_ Monica said. _“it ended up overriding his directions and driving off for the harbour, where it got shipped to Gavin’s island. Um, with Jared in it.”_

“To his - to his - what the - what the fuck, Monica? Is he okay?”

_“Oh uh yeah he got picked up by a trawler earlier today. They should be arriving at the marina in an hour or so. I uh, I think he’d really appreciate seeing a friendly face? I’d go myself but-”_

Richard hung up, ran to pull on a jacket, and announced to anybody listening that he was going out and he was borrowing Erlich’s car. Erlich started to say something, but if it was a protest, Richard was already out the door and unable to hear it.

*

It was cold and windy at the marina. Monica had texted him the directions and he watched as the trawler docked. He waited and watched and finally a very familiar figure appeared, a white blanket draped over his shoulders. He walked giraffe-like down the gangway and Richard waved. Richard could see Jared’s surprised smile from where he was standing and smiled back, started walking to meet him, and when Jared was a few paces away he suddenly lurched downwards and barreled into a hug, nearly rugby tackling Richard, one of Richard’s arms caught inbetween them and Jared’s hands tightly gripping his waist.

“Oh, hey, uh,” Richard said, awkwardly patting Jared’s shoulder with his free hand.

“Oh, I can’t believe it!” Jared said a little hoarsely, reluctantly letting go after a few moments. “I can’t believe you’re here! Am I dreaming?” He suddenly looked concerned, as if Richard Hendricks picking you up at the marina was some kind of too good to be true scenario.

“Um, no uh, Jesus, are you okay, Jared?”

“I’m- I’m-” he looked a litle overwhelmed. “I am now.”

“I uh, I’ve been really worried,” Richard said, embellishing a little. “I tried calling a bunch of times.”

“Oh,” Jared said, his eyes going a little misty. “oh, I’m so sorry, Richard, to add something like that to your concerns at such a a crucial moment for Pied Piper-”

“Don’t uh, don’t apologize. This is uh, this is on Monica. Let’s, come on, in the car.”

*

Jared had not wanted to go back to his condo. Richard had tried telling him he could take the rest of the day off to recuperate and him and the guys could finish preparing for TechCrunch Disrupt, but he’d admitted in a thin voice he really just didn’t want to be alone, so Richard had stopped for some Chinese food before driving them both back to the hacker house. Jared still had the white blanket wrapped around himself when they walked into the house, Richard carrying bags of food. Gilfoye and Dinesh, smelling the takeaway, descended upon him like vultures when he entered the house, taking the bags. Gilfoyle cleared a table with his forearm to make room for the boxes.

“Hey Jared,” Dinesh said, looked at him with a frown. “what the fuck happened to you? You look like you got kidnapped in the eighties.”

“That’s actually a pretty good guess!”

“Not right now,” Richard said, pushed Jared in front of him into the bathroom. “and don’t eat all the fucking food.”

Jared really smelled like he’d spent four days (or however long? Like, at least four days?) on his own on a robot island, so while he showered Richard looked through his wardrobe for something like… long enough. He found an ugly sweater his mom had knitted him and an oversized Radiohead T shirt he’d won online and some sweatpants and socks and boxers and when he heard the water stop running, he knocked gently and passed them to Jared through a sliver of door, his long white arm snaking out to accept them.

When he emerged he admittedly looked like he’d dressed in the dark but some colour had come back into his face and he stroked long careful fingers down the sweater and smiled a little. “Um, I uh, well, my laptop is back at my condo but maybe there’s a spare I can use, get caught up to speed?”

“Don’t worry about that right now,” Richard said. “let’s uh, let’s eat.”

They sat next to each other on the couch and finished off what Dinesh and Gilfoyle hadn’t demolished, then Richard quietly opened his Macbook and worked while Jared still sat close, watching a nature documentary Richard had found. For some reason Dinesh and Gilfoyle worked like normal without commenting, which Richard was grateful for. Around one in the morning Richard was blinking tiredly and Jared was curled up next to him on the sofa, asleep.

“What the fuck happened to him?” Gilfoyle asked, cracking open one of his gross IPAs.

“One of Gavin’s self-driving cars took him to a robot island,” Richard said. “he’s been on his own there since the last time we saw him.”

“Did he anger the car?” Gilfoyle asked.

Richard squinted. “I did… not ask.” Gilfoyle shook his head and retreated into his bedroom.

Richard yawned, closed his Macbook, got up.

"Uh uh, Richard?” Jared said, waking up.

“Yeah uh. I’m going to bed. Um, you can crash on the couch, if you want.”

“Can I come with you?”

“Um. What?”

“I mean- I just mean- can I sleep in your room? I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t mind.”

Richard sighed. He got it, actually. He couldn’t really picture how creepy it must have been for him on that weirdo island, sleeping all alone in a car. He wasn’t the most, like… well, Jared would know what to do in a situation like this. It was kind of more up his alley like, taking care of people. But Jared seemed happy enough as long as he had company, so he supposed he could get the foldout bed Erlich kept for when he was at maximum incubee capacity and put it on the little floor space in his room. “Come on.”

Richard found the extra bed and made it a little sloppily, found another blanket and brought in a cushion from the sofa. He looked down on it. It very clearly sucked.

“Oh, I’m really very grateful, Richard.”

“You uh, you take the bunk,” Richard said, jerking his head, then pulled his hoodie over his head.

“Richard! I couldn’t possibly!”

“Yeah uh, go ahead.”

“Oh, no, the extra bed is more than enough for me, I-”

Richard laid down on top of it, smiled up at him. “What are you going to do, tip me out? This is my bed now. Go to sleep.”

There was a beat, and Jared crouched down beside him, put a hand over one of Richard’s. “Thank you,” he whispered. “you’re… oh, Richard. I…”

“Yeah uh, okay,” Richard said, patting his hand a little before pulling his own away. “go to sleep. Big um, big day tomorrow, yeah? I uh, I need my head of business development well rested.”

“If you’re really sure,” Jared said, and carefully climbed up in Richard’s bed.

*

Richard woke up a few hours later, stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom for a piss. When he came back he started climbing the bunk on autopilot, fumbled to get in and ended up grabbing a thin ankle. Oh fuck shit Jared. He pulled his hand back, hoping he hadn’t woken him up.

“R-Richard?”

“Sorry, sorry,” he whispered. “I forgot you were up here. Sorry.”

“Come in,” Jared said, shifted towards the wall, making room.

“What? Why?”

“Just for a moment,” Jared said.

“Uh? Okay?” Richard got in, laid down next to him. It wasn’t as tight a fit as he would have thought, especially with Jared up against the wall, making himself small. “You okay, Jared?”

“It’s weird, how quickly life can change,” Jared said. “gosh, those days on the island… I think that’s my, maybe my twelfth scariest experience.”

“Twelfth?”

“And then today was just… being rescued by that trawler, and then being met by you, and… well, I’ve been so worried, about TechCrunch Disrupt…”

“You’re more important than TechCrunch Disrupt,” Richard said. “I’m like, just glad you’re okay.”

There was a long silence. “I thought about you.”

“Huh?”

“I knew I had to make it. So I could see you again.”

Jared reached into the hug slowly, gave Richard plenty of time to stop him or move away, but he didn’t. He let Jared put an arm around him and rest his head on his shoulder and breathe hotly into his neck. The “I love you” was so quiet he wasn’t actually sure he’d heard it.

*

TechCrunch Disrupt was kind of a mess. Richard had managed to fall asleep like that, tangled up with Jared, and if his alarm hadn’t woken them both up and the adrenaline of the day ahead hadn’t started coursing in his veins it might have been kind of awkward, but as it were they both just hustled out of bed. Jared disappeared in an Uber to go back to his condo to get changed, Richard and the guys got in Erlich’s car and drove out to the convention center. Monica, clearly feeling guilty about the whole island incident, was there and organizing all the shit that Jared would usually do, and Richard was dimly aware Jared wasn’t happy about it but way too busy to like, start doing HR shit. If he didn’t have enough on his plate freaking Sherry, an ex girlfriend, showed up, and started telling people he was like some creepy obsessive. Wow, excuse him for like, maybe trying to get in touch after being like, ghosted? Uh? Then they went back to the hotel and a completely out of hand dick joke got Richard thinking and sent him into a total coding stupor where there was no room for anything else, not Jared, not Monica, not the guys, not Dan Melcher’s fiancee, not fucking Sherry, nothing.

*

“I’m sure it will work, Richard,” Jared whispered, as they made their way up on the stage. “you’re brilliant.”

“You don’t know,” Richard said, felt like puking. “you don’t.”

But Richard did not puke - he actually managed to fucking IMPROV a presentation, in front of thousands of nerds, and his rejigged algorithm blew the fucking Weissmann score record to PIECES.

“The winners are,” an impressed judge announced, “Pied Piper.”

“Come here, you beautiful bastard,” Erlich told him, but Jared was too quick, slipped in front of Erlich, grabbed Richard’s shoulders and kissed his mouth hard, then stepped away, looking like he couldn’t quite believe what he’d just done, and Richard laughed a little incredulously.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” Gilfoyle said, then grabbed Richard and hugged him too. There was more hugging than Richard had had in the last year combined in those few minutes.

*

“Oh Richard, I’m so sorry, I’m so, so, so sorry,” Jared said, when he’d finally managed to get him alone (he’d been pretty obvious about trying ever since they walked off the stage, but there just hadn’t been the time). They were back at the hotel room, the other guys were still out partying.

“What uh, why,” Richard said.

Jared, looking very contrite, pulled up Code/Rag on his phone. Someone had managed to take a picture when Jared had kissed him and that had been the photo they chose to illustrate the story about Pied Piper winning TechCrunch Disrupt with. “I uh- I don’t know what came over me,” Jared said. “oh Richard, I’d do anything to take it back.”

Richard shrugged. “Yeah? I wouldn’t.”

Jared tilted his head a little. “Richard?”

Richard bit his lip and looked up at him, then gently touched Jared’s cheek. Jared’s breath hitched and he covered Richard’s hand with his own and closed his eyes, and leant down. Richard leaned up and kissed him, soft but insistent, moments passed, then Jared gasped, and only a thread of saliva connected them for a moment before he pressed his lips to Richard’s again, whimpering a little. When they parted Jared was breathing so hard Richard couldn’t resist letting his hand slip to Jared’s chest, just to feel the rise and fall.

“I think maybe I died on that island,” Jared said. “I think this might be heaven.”

Richard had no idea what to say to that, so he just laughed again.


	7. The Secret Keeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On the fine art of keeping your mouth shut.

Jared was good at keeping secrets. Big secrets, little secrets, sweet secrets, painful secrets. Secrets that started out sweet before turning painful. He was even good at being a secret. He’d been David’s secret at Vassar, he’d been Jim’s secret at Google. It was a thing he had become a little proud of, his ability to keep his mouth shut and his face neutral when that was something he was tasked with. He loved to be useful at the end of the day. 

Secrets had expiry dates. After enough time had passed and circumstances changed they were no longer secrets, which were a thing that took effort, cunning, concentration, they were merely private memories, locked away where they could no longer hurt, or put on shelves in the thotchke-filled living room of his mind, something to give a little pleasure when noticed or remembered. 

Currently, Jared had two secrets. One was the secret of the fact he had moved into Erlich’s garage while AirBnB-ing his condo in order to cut his wages and boost the income of the company. He didn’t feel too bad about it all, he spent most of his time at the hacker house anyway, and while the honest thing to do would of course be to ask Erlich’s permission he wasn’t entirely sure he’d get a positive reply - Erlich was very mercurial, it was a charming facet of his personality - and he simply couldn’t risk that at such a precarious juncture for Pied Piper.

The other secret was wonderful.

Richard had agreed to regular meetings focussed on the business development side of Pied Piper. Jared appreciated it, he did as much of it he could on his own as he was very aware Richard found it all painfully dull. But he set aside around 40 minutes every night to get caught up, give final says, steer the course and listen to Jared’s ideas. Since the living room could be noisy and distracting with the traffic of kitchen trips, games tournaments or verbal warfare, Richard had suggested they do the meetings in his room. Jared had been delighted. Just him, and Richard, in the cradle of genius, his very own living quarters, Jared on a foldout chair and Richard in his office chair, it might not be as grand as Hooli’s campus but it felt a thousand times more magnificent. 

One night after they’d celebrated a surge of new users Richard had been a little tipsy, but had still insisted on the meeting, and Jared had happily complied, grabbing his laptop and trailing after him. He’d presented what he’d thought was a quite imaginative solution to potential HR conflict of interests, but Richard hadn’t really paid attention, just sort of looked at him, with those big expressive eyes of him, and Jared had almost felt a little flustered by it all. 

“Richard, are you even listening?” he’d said, smiling.

“Yeah uh, sure.”

“What did I just say?”

Richard ignored him, rolled over on his office chair, coming closer. “Can I try something?”

Jared blinked, and nodded, slowly. “Yes,” he said. “anything.”

Richard grinned, showing his large front teeth, and Jared felt the corners of his mouth pull as well, like an echo. Then Jared learned the secrets of the sensation of Richard’s fingers on his jawline and neck, the arc of Richard’s eyelashes when he closed his eyes, the softness and shyness of Richard’s lips against his own, Richard’s taste. His head was swimming with secrets. 

Jared wasn’t sure how long they kissed, leaning ridiculously into each other from their respective chairs, but he wanted to etch every second into his memory, ever detail. The texture of Richard’s shirt, the sounds he made, what he responded to, the feeling of his hair. Eventually he pulled away, laughed breathlessly. 

“Um, yeah, uh, wow, right?”

Jared nodded eagerly. 

“I’d like, I’d uh, I’d ask you to stay the night, but um it would probably look kinda weird. Uh.”

Jared smiled. “You can count on my complete discretion, Richard, of course. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you, or put you in an uncomfortable position!”

Richard frowned a little. “I just meant…”

Jared shook his head, got up. “Don’t worry, Richard! Good night, my captain. See you tomorrow.” Then he’d cheerfully turned and left, said his goodbyes to the guys, feigned leaving for his condo and crept back into the garage, feeling like confetti and fireworks. That night he came with his hand around his dick and the ghost of Richard’s kiss still on his lips. 

Jared reasoned that if he could be good, if he could keep this secret to his usual perfection, Richard would feel safe enough to continue what he had started. To his joy the plan worked and during their next business development catch ups he learned the secrets of how they could both fairly comfortably lie next to each other on Richard’s bunk bed without it creaking, how his hand shaped itself around Richard’s ass, how Richard gasped at a bite. 

Eventually Jared decided to share the secret of the garage with Richard. 

“Goodness me, Richard,” Jared whispered, urgently, shaking his shoulder.

“Uh, what? Uh”

“Richard, we fell asleep. Goodness knows how we managed it!” 

They were both on Jared’s narrow cot in the garage, Richard’s back to Jared’s chest. They were both clammy and smelled like each other.

“Uh,” Richard said again. He could be a little inarticulate before his coffee and cereal.

“You need to go back in the house before anybody wakes up. Go, get dressed, I’ll come in in half an hour.”

“Are you that stressed out about the guys finding out you sleep here? Like, we’ll have a conversation about it, don’t worry. I’ll talk to Erlich.”

“Well- no, I mean, if we- well, you don’t want the guys to suspect anything about us, do you?”

Richard turned, almost falling off the cot in the process, but finally managed to maneuvre himself so they were chest to chest, his breath very warm on Jared’s neck. “Eh, let’s just tell them. I’m sick of sneaking around, what’s the point.”

Richard yawned and shifted, getting comfortable, falling back asleep. Jared put his arm around him, let a hand drag down his back. There was a pleasure to be had in keeping a secret. But it was, he felt at that moment, nothing against the excitement of being allowed to tell it.


End file.
